Over 250K people left Turkey in 2017, 42,5 pct more than previous year

A total of 253,640 people left Turkey in 2017, 42,5 percent over the previous year, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported, citing the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat).

Iraqis took first place in this group with 20,4 percent, Azerbaijanis (7,5 percent), Syrians (6,7 percent), Afghans (4,6 percent) and Chinese (4,5 percent).

“When the age distribution of the departing population was analyzed, it was seen that 15,5 percent of them were in the 25-29 age group, followed by the 20-24 age group with 14,4 percent and the 30-34 age group with 12,3 percent,” TurkStat added.

A total of 75,849 people left İstanbul, 27,379 from Ankara and 15,056 from Antalya.

Meanwhile, the number of migrants in Turkey rose by 22,4 percent, reaching 466,333 in 2017, compared to the previous year, 52,3 percent of whom were men and 47,7 percent were women, TurkStat said.

A total of 26,6 percent of all migrants comprised Iraqis, 10,4 percent Afghans, 7,7 percent Syrians, 5,7 percent Azerbaijanis, and 5,6 percent were citizens of Turkmenistan, it added.

“In 2017, 12,3 percent of the migrant population was in the 25-29 age group, followed by the 20-24 age group with 11,6 percent and the 30-34 age group with 10,8 percent,” TurkStat said.

İstanbul drew the highest number of migrants with 166,044. The city is followed by the capital of Ankara (46,475) and the Mediterranean city of Antalya (21,888).

Turkey also hosts the highest number of refugees in the world, according to official figures. The number of Syrian refugees living in the country was 3,54 million as of July. (turkishminute.com)